Plato
Athenian philosopher, founder of the Academy (c. 428–348 BCE)
Also known as: Platon
Plato (c. 428–348 BCE), Athenian philosopher and founder of the Academy, is Quigley's principal reference point for the strand of Classical Civilization that he calls Pythagorean-rationalist or Platonic — a dualistic, otherworldly cognitive system that, in Quigley's analysis, "contributed to a denigration of observation, testing of hypotheses, and experiment" and helped kill ancient science (EoC 78).
Platonism as cognitive system
Quigley uses "Platonism" almost as a technical term in his civilizational analysis. "The Pythagorean rationalists (including Plato)" assumed "that man, insofar as he was a physical body living in the material world, was basically evil, because matter, the world, and the flesh were evil" (WS 81). "The Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Platonic view, by making deity transcendental tended to make matter and the flesh ungodly" (WS 82) — a tradition that produced a body of dualistic religious and philosophical thinking running from Persian Zoroastrianism through the Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity to dissenting strands of Christian thought. In Tragedy and Hope Quigley calls the Classical philosophical outlook "Neoplatonic," derived "from the teachings of Persian Zoroastrianism, Pythagorean rationalism, and Platonism" (T&H 97), and identifies it as the cognitive backdrop against which Western Civilization had to redefine itself.
Plato as political reactionary
Quigley's reading of Plato's politics is sharply critical. In his Washington Sunday Star review of Christopher Morris's Western Political Thought he objects that "Plato and Aristotle, as political reactionaries, wished to preserve" the polis "a century after Pericles saw that the polis was obsolete as a political organization. The Sophist and Stoic efforts to free the individual from the all-embracing grasp of the polis" have been systematically underweighted by the classicists (Book Reviews 77). Plato survived, he argues elsewhere, "just because [he] DID NOT represent the outlook of the ordinary Greek of [his] day, but [was], in fact, the rebellion against that outlook" (Book Reviews 76). The methodological complaint connects directly to Quigley's argument in The Evolution of Civilizations: that the Platonic idealist tradition led to "ideologically Platonistic society" patterns in which "social arrangements are molded to express a rigidly idealized version of reality" (EoC 9) — an analytical move Quigley repeats whenever a civilization institutionalizes its instruments and decays.
Cited in
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 9 Quigley
In an ideologically Platonistic society, social arrangements are molded to express a rigidly idealized version of reality.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 78 Quigley
The view that the only acceptable method for discovering the nature of reality was accepted by Socrates and Plato (and, in his earlier period, by Aristotle) and led to the death of ancient science by contributing to a denigration of observation, testing of hypotheses, and experiment.
- book-reviews · p. 76 Quigley
The reason some of them, such as Xenophon and Plato, survived was just because they DID NOT represent the outlook of the ordinary Greek of their day, but were, in fact, the rebellion against that outlook.
- book-reviews · p. 77 Quigley
Plato and Aristotle, as political reactionaries, wished to preserve that condition and the polis itself, a century after Pericles saw that the polis was obsolete as a political organization.
- weapons-systems-political-stability · p. 81 Quigley
Back to Zoroaster and the Pythagorean rationalists (including Plato), who assumed that man, insofar as he was a physical body living in the material world, was basically evil.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 97 Quigley
The Classical philosophic outlook, which we might call Neoplatonic, was derived from the teachings of Persian Zoroastrianism, Pythagorean rationalism, and Platonism.